“Szasz tirelessly defended the autonomy of even the most severely disturbed mental patients (so long as they didn’t violate the law), yet seemed to care little whether they live or die if no one infringed on their sacred negative rights. ”

Szasz acknowledged the truth that nobody can be labeled a “patient” against their will without great injustice and coercion. Szasz cared more than you will ever know about whether we will live or die, for he cared about human beings going through a crisis, and our right not to be psychiatrized. There is nobody that cared more about the dignity of people forced into the mental patient role. And “we” certainly don’t need or want, the uninvited false “advocacy” of anonymous people like Aporeticist, and Aporeticist just proves Szasz’s lifelong point, that people who are willing to throw our rights under the bus in the process of pretending to be our “advocates”, are never going to improve the situation, ever.

God bless Thomas Szasz. May he rest in peace. And may all individuals in jeopardy of being “helped” against their will by self-appointed “advocated” such as Aporeticist be protected somehow, from such molestation.

And the mindhacks blog stands condemned for such pathetic attacks and apologia for the human rights abuses heaped upon those labeled “mentally ill”, daily.

Your misplaced “advocacy” of coercive psychiatry, has been a sickening thing since day 1 of this blog.

Not that I mind helping people but it shouldn’t be done under false medical pretences.

Szasz was a polarizing figure (as opposed to being universally reviled). He relished and deliberately cultivated his image as a heretic. Yet, the clichéd notion of an author whose work doesn’t allow for indifference, and instead provokes extremes of either enthusiasm or bitter hostility, fails to portray Szasz accurately. Apart from unconditional admiration by some libertarians and reflexive rejection by his profession (and many on the political left), Szasz’s writings leave most open-minded readers with a sense of radical ambivalence. So much of what one finds in his books strikes one as prima facie reasonable, and the rest as equally patently, and disquietingly, wrong. Perhaps it’s this peculiar, uneasy mixture of reactions that my post captures better than anything else.

I enjoyed your thoughtful eulogy for Professor Szasz. You’ve managed to outline his major stances exceptionally clearly, in a concise, readable piece that could serve as an excellent primer (and refresher) on Szasz’s ideas. Your critique of his views is astute and fair, too, in my estimation (Szaszians will disagree, of course). One of the rebel psychiatrist’s most “infuriating” qualities was, as you would probably agree, his seeming inability to admit (or even experience?) doubt, and to change his mind about anything of significance. Obviously, such steadfastness and certainty of conviction don’t ipso facto prove that his arguments are unassailable.

”yet seemed to care little whether they live or die”

Can you cite any references by Szasz to this pernicious slur?